David and I had a wonderful day on Black Friday. Not only did we avoid the shopping malls, but we did the load in for our exhibit at Soft Expressions in Anaheim (map). David and I enjoyed the day and the time we spent with Sharla and her husband getting the layout of the exhibit determined and getting all the pieces hung.  We have 36 pieces hanging in this exhibit and it spans from some early pieces to current work. Sharla was able to identify some of the work as David's and some as mine, but there were a few crossover pieces where we actually stumped her.

The show is scheduled to run through January and the reception will be on Saturday, January 10th. The tentative time is from 1:30p to 4:30p. The reception is after the Quilts on the Wall meeting, so if you attend the meeting, enjoy a lunch and then come to the reception for a little dessert and to see the exhibit.

 If you are unable to make it to the reception I hope that you will be able to make time to see it sometime in December or January, during the run of the show. Check Soft Expressions' office hours or call 714-630-7414 for their schedule.

I have been working feverishly getting all the quilts documented and cards created for the exhibit at Soft Expressions in Anaheim, Ca. I now have the cards done and printed. Woo Hoo!

Doing all the cards also gave me the extra incentive I needed to get the quilts I haven't done uploaded to the website and pages created for them.

I still have a long way to go before I have all of our work on the website, but I am closer than I was two weeks ago. I am hopeful that I will be able to keep current as we create new work. 

How do you schedule your time for updating your website? A specific day every week or as you finish a new piece of art? I would love to know.

Update: Our Artist Reception will be January 10th, 2015. It is the second Saturday of the new year
1:30pm to about 4:30pm.

Address: 1230 N Jefferson St # M, Anaheim, CA 92807
Monday to Friday 10 AM to 3:30 PM
Select Saturdays for Artist Receptions or classes only
Call for events or verify hours

Phone: (714) 630-7414

David and I will have a dual show at the Soft Expressions gallery in Anaheim in December. We don't have the reception date yet, but I will post that and send it out as soon as I confirm the date. The artist receptions are always on a Saturday, so I hope that you will find time to come see a large portion of our art all in one place.

I have spent the last three days getting all the card information ready for all the pieces. David has spent his time getting the hanging sticks cut and ready to install in the quilts.

While I was doing all that I decided to do some updating on the website. (As if the cards were not enough work!)
As a result, I have added a lot of new work and updated some of the information on the existing pieces. I still don't have all of our work up on the site yet, but I am a whole lot closer.

I hope you take some time to look around the website and make time to come see our exhibition at Soft Expressions. Stop in and say "Hi" and enjoy some refreshments while looking at our pieces in person. 

What a crazy, busy weekend. David and I had our member meeting with the Textures Fiber Arts group on Friday night. Everyone got together and discussed the results of our annual show. Most of the discussion was about what worked, what didn't, what we might do differently.  We discussed and decided on a topic for our next year's challenge piece and if we were accepting new members. At the end, we got to share new works in progress and techniques we were working with.

Saturday morning we arose and made the mad dash to Seal Beach so we could attend the Quilts on the Wall meeting. It was not a well attended meeting this month because several artists had exhibition receptions that they were prepping for and could not easily do both. 

The Quitls on the Wall meeting was fun because we not only picked the topics for our next two challenges, and I love the topics. It is going to be fun to design for them. The due dates were bumped back so there is a chance that I will have enough time to do both of them and still get my Textures quilts done for next October.

At the end of the meeting the group played a guessing game. Every artist was to bring in a quilt from their past. All the quilts were scrambled between members and you had to pick which quilt went with which artist. It was amazing that out of everyone that brought something, only two quilters were able to stump the group. The group had to take a lot of extra time to figure out the last pair and I was one of them. I brought one of my traditional quilts from 1994! The game was more fun than I originally thought.

Has your group ever done something like that? If so, let me know what you thought.

There are several businesses that will print your designs on fabric for a very reasonable fee. A very good blog that discusses the most popular sites is this one: http://www.trueup.net/2013/q-a/digital-printing-services-2013-edition/. This blog discusses some new to me print houses and also file types required and the different pitfalls to be aware of when submitting your file. Not verifying proper sizing, dpi (dots per inch), and not color matching are the most common errors made.

The companies I have used in the past are:
Spoonflower
Fabric on Demand

I was very satisfied with both and depending on what you are looking for, one might work better for you, but check them both out.
My plan is to send the same design to several of the manufacturers using their requirements and post a blog on the results.

A new (to me) print house is Modern Yardage. I heard about this site in the Elizabeth Busch workshop I recently took at the Visions Art Museum. From the comments made, this is also an excellent option for your custom fabric design.

Be sure to review all the criteria for submitting your artwork to each vendor. They do differ and must be followed precisely for best results. All the printers offer a variety of fabrics in different weights and fiber and even papers (Spoonflower) that they will print on. All offer a swatch service for a minimal fee so you can make sure you have the correct colors before ordering your final yardage.

Modern Yardage requires TIFF file format, RGB or LAB color—Because of quality issues, we do not accept CMYK colored files and 200 dpi resolution. The image must be sized as it will be printed.  They will not scale custom files.

Fabric on Demand accepts 
.jpg, .tiff, .png, .psd, .ai, .eps, .pdf. Maximum 300 dpi to allow enlargement and 
minimum 72 dpi at actual print size.

Spoonflower accepts formats in: TIF, JPG, PNG, GIF. The file must be less than 40MB (150 DPI recommended)

Advanced Digital Textiles are a little more expensive, but there are many options of types of inks, dyes, fabric finishes, etc. These choices might be exactly what you are looking for. You can order a complete 5 x 5 inch swatch set of all their base fabrics for only $12. 

SC Fabric Printing will work with you from any type of sketch or digital design you submit. They have a wide range of fabrics and pricing depending on the print and design services you require. They accept  a variety of graphic formats including: .tif, .jpg, .ai, .psd, etc.. They require you to save your files in CMYK at actual size 150 dpi for optimal output.

If you have had any experience with any of these print on demand vendors, please let me know. I would love to hear about your results and opinions.